Standing alongside Fantastic Fest and Stiges as the crème de la crème of genre-focused film festivals, Fantasia is the only one of the three that also arrives during the heat and high of the mid-summer movie season. It’s certainly a smart situation for Fantasia, providing moviegoers a refreshing dose of the gory and the gonzo sandwiched between the considerably heavier programming found at the likes of Cannes in the early summer and the run of Locarno, Venice, TIFF, and NYFF that dominates the months of August and September.
But more than mere precise timing, Fantasia stands out for its bold programming, culling a selection of international fare that reflects an embrace of both tradition and experiment, lizard-brained curios and stomach-churning sensory assaults, and cinemas past, present, and future. It’s a full-throated rebuke of the narcotized programming instincts that have come to dominate too many less confident festivals, and instead proves over and over that it’s full to the brim with the kind of juice needed to stand against the increasingly imagination-absent film landscape. For proof, look no further than the Fantasia titles below that we’ve previously written on, which include new projects from the likes of Takashi Miike, Ari Aster, and Hélène Cattet & Bruno Forzani. Fantasia Fest 2025 is sure to deliver plenty more where these came from.
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